As growing global trade has brought a dramatic increase in the number of products coming in from other countries, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s top official says her agency has responded with new approaches to ensure public safety while supporting growth at the Port of Savannah.

“One of the core missions of the FDA is to ensure that the food on our dinner tables and in our school cafeterias is safe to eat,” Kingston said. “That effort includes keeping a watchful eye over the food imports that enter our country through our ports.”

The agency is responsible for ensuring that FDA-regulated goods coming into the United States comply with federal standards and don’t pose a public health risk. Those goods include human and animal drugs, 80 percent of the food supply, biological products, medical devices, cosmetics and tobacco products.

Hamburg said globalization has multiplied the scale of the FDA’s responsibility.

“This year, we expect that nearly 20 million shipments of food, devices, drugs and cosmetics will arrive at U.S. ports of entry,” she said.

“Just a decade ago, that number was closer to six million, and a decade before only a fraction of that.”

At the Port of Savannah alone, the number of FDA-regulated import lines has grown from 20,000 in 2002 to 158,000 last year.

Because it is impossible to screen each of the nearly three million containers that comes in and out of the Port of Savannah each year, federal regulators are focusing on new technologies that assess risk and identify and evaluate products as they come in.

While new screening technology has helped with the exponential growth at Savannah’s port, the number of screeners has not grown significantly. The FDA employs four inspectors in Savannah, a number Hamburg says she would like to see doubled.

Kingston, who serves as chairman of the on the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees the FDA’s budget, said he was committed to ensuring the agency has the tools necessary to maintain adequate levels of safety but stopped short of endorsing additional inspectors.

Hamburg’s visit was the latest in a series of federal appearances at the port as a record of decision on the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project — designed to deepen the harbor for the advent of larger container ships — looms closer.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood expressed his support for the project during a port tour in November, while Acting U.S. Deputy Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank toured the port in February.